I have a question for some experienced resto shaman out there – do you think that in 10mans haste could have greater value than mastery / crit, specifically in situations where heal ‘sniping’ occurs. I realise that meters aren’t anything by a long shot but i’m really struggling to be competitive (i’m specifically grouped with a resto druid / holy pala). I’m fairly comfortable that my choice of heal is quite good and that tidal waves are kept up most of the time, but no matter how hard i try i’m just not keeping up in hps.
Perhaps the issue is larger than stat weights but at the moment i’m just looking at what I can do to improve my throughput easier and i would have thought both mastery and crit are greatly reduced in efficiency when being cast on targets that are being healed a second before my heal goes off.
I realise that the best solution to this would be proper healing assignments but unfortunately i’m new to my current guild and dont want to be seen as presumptious.
Any help would be greatly appreciated and (if you have time) logs are provided below
TBH considering i usually run with at least the resto druid i was wondering if mastery doesn't lose some value.. crit obviously does as well however i would have thought with the regen aspect from resurgence it might up the value over mastery *shrug*
This sort of goes back to what I just said.... "If people aren't dying and you're killing bosses, quit worrying about meters." That sentiment, however unhelpful , is totally correct. Having said that, I feel as if I'm not pulling my weight and thats why i'm posting here. perhaps its merely to sooth my dented ego but right now (having healed the past 3 expansions on characters other than shaman) i dont feel as if i'm playing to anywhere near my potential.
I'm not going for any particular maths based argument here, tbh i think my problems have more to do with raid composition and boss positioning than any particular reforging and itemisation.. having said that, if people aren't stacked up, theres a resto druid blanketing the raid with hots, and i'm feeling as my heals aren't being as effective as they might be, then there's the posibility of addressing that with a little creative thinking.
I mean maybe i'll never be able to stack enough haste to compete with the other healers on a cast by cast basis, and thats fair enough, but i'd really like some constructive input. Unfortunately i'm rubbish at analysing logs :/
I play in 10-man with holy pala and resto druid too and feel like you since 4.2. It seems like it isn't possible to compete versus a resto druid at the moment. It can be depressing, but you need to understand that you can be useful to your raid even if you're not topping the meters. By gearing haste you might increase your hps on the meter, but that wouldn't be useful to your raid. It would just allow you to snipe your druid's hots.
I don't know how your raid works, but in mine I'm mainly useful when there is high damage going on. Most of the time, my heal aren't really needed as the pala will cover most single target damage wheareas the druid can easily cover the low raid damage. But when there is high damage going on you can really shine and save the raid. (like in one of our Beth'ilac wipe last night I managed 19k hps \o/). That's why our mastery keeps high value: it's useful when you're really needed and it can save the raid.
My stat choice is: haste to 916 > mastery > crit > spirit > haste.
The 2005 haste cap doesn't seem like a very important cap to me, as you'll often refresh Riptide on tanks before that 9th tick.
Crit is now a very good stat, especially in 10-man because you could have to cast more single target spells. Each time you're healing someone above 50% hp, crit is better than mastery. Plus 3 crit rating gives you about as much regen than 1 spirit (see my blog if you want to know more about that).
Being in the same situation than you, I reforged away a lot of spirit for last night raid and it worked great. That is, I didn't have any mana problems, so more throughtput stat is always better . I'm sitting at 1784 spirit out of combat, or ~2700 raid buffed with 4T11 and Darkmoon Card: Tsunami. With that setting you need to drop Mana Tide early (I drop mine at 80% mana, but I'm sure you could even drop it earlier. Just make sure you have the most possible active intel and spirit buffs when you drop it), keep Water Shield up, and you have to remember to cast a few Lighting Bolt whenever possible, but it seems totally manageable. I'll try and reforge away more spirit for next raid.
Concerning templates, when 4.2 went out I tried a template with acuity 3/3, Ancestral Awakening 3/3, Focused Insight 0/3 + 1 filling point in resto tree. After a few raids I found that I missed Focused Insight too much and respecced with FI 3/3, AA 3/3 and Acuity 1/3. AA was still a good parts on my healing on fights where spot healing is needed (about 5-6%, whereas it was at ~3-4% at best during 4.1). Even if in many fight it does very few healing because I don't use single target spells, I find the talent useful because it helps in situations where we're not at our advantage.
I'm curious as to your current t12 progression and your past t11 progression Zahia.
I should have noted that mainly my healing experiences is that of 25 man environment, so of course I favor the 2005 haste threshold, as I'm spending most of the time on the raid and rolling riptide on multiple targets(2 tanks and a melee handy to ready to smash CH off.) Also the 2005 threshold is not too difficult to obtain. When I do healing in 10 mans, I do drop a lot of haste and throw extra mastery, never crit.
The rule of thumb used to be for crit, that: it's too unpredictable, the crit rating to % is too low and most of it is wasted in overhealing. I know a resurgence re-work and 200% healing crtis, but would these really cause crit to become better than haste or mastery? Also, a lot of your reasoning is dealing with regen, but what if I have no regen problems? Why should I have crit instead of haste or mastery which is more of a direct throughput stat.
I don't raid hard modes and am only at the begining of Firelands, but what I said about stats is not just me, lots of shaman only get haste up to 916. And the fact that crit gets better than mastery as a throughtput stat when you're healing people above 50% comes from Elltists Jerks, so I'm assuming it's true and doesn't depends on my progression. This takes into acount the low crit rating to %. And crit aren't wasted in overhealing, especially with a AA spec.
I don't care that you're raiding 10 or 25, the OP is raiding 10 and so do I, so it seems like he could be interested about how I value secondary stats. I'd like to note that I never said "you must do that", I just explained how I do it, and maybe it could also work for him, or maybe not, it's him to judge if he want to try what works for me or not.
I know the 2005 breakpoint is easy to reach, I had it before the buff to mastery. But may I ask how gettting to 2005 haste is useful, if you're consumming Riptide with CH before the 9th tick happen? Anyway, what I wanted to say about haste, is that while gearing for haste will increase YOUR healing numbers, it won't increase the total healing done by your raid, it'll just allow you to heal before your druid's hot ticks heal people back to full.
I you want to look at my armory, feel free to do so. My shaman is Zahia on Vol'jin EU.
Well for starters, I want to point out that druid HoT's are the epitome of HPS. it is very rare that you will be able to pull more HPS than a skilled resto druid (once they get a chance to pop tranquility, its pretty much GG). However that does not mean that you can't be a competitive healer. I raid 10 mans with a Holy paladin and priest (he switches between disc/holy depending on the fight requirements). Ever since 4.2, I feel that shaman secondary stats come down to personal play style and what your role in the raid is (whether you're solo healing a tank, alternating between tanks and raid, or healing raid). For example, I generally have the tank healing role, so i get haste up to the 916 break point and stack mastery after that (with a little bit of crit for the pretty numbers). My spell breakdown tends to be Greater Healing Wave on top, followed by Riptide, followed by earth shield. However if i'm ever in a raid healing situation, the breakdown completely switches, with Chain Heal and Healing Rain rocketing up to the top. In that situation, it would be beneficial to have more haste, since your hots (riptide, ELW, HR) will be hitting a lot more people, and your CH (which has an abominably long cast time) will be able to do more.
TL:DR
Stat priorities depend on your healing role in the raid.
The main issue with haste is the negative effect it has on regen. Unless you are also running a TC build but then your stat valuation is skewed as well. Because mastery does not affect TC at all the real stat priority should then be Haste > Crit > Mastery
Really comes down to this Mastery = Progression Haste = Farm after all dots recieve extra tick
, is totally correct. Having said that, I feel as if I'm not pulling my weight and thats why i'm posting here. perhaps its merely to sooth my dented ego but right now (having healed the past 3 expansions on characters other than shaman) i dont feel as if i'm playing to anywhere near my potential.
